Contact Your House Member to Support the Federal Research Public Access Act
Posted on May 3, 2010 by ebrennan | No Comments
By Mary White, Chair, MLGSCA Government Relations/By-Laws Committee
Background Information:
On April 15, 2010, Representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Gregg Harper (R-MS), Rick Boucher (D-VA), and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced H.R. 5037, “The Federal Research Public Access Act” (FRPAA). The language in H.R. 5037 is identical to S. 1373, introduced by Senators Cornyn (R-TX) and Lieberman (I-CT) last summer.
This legislation would require federal agencies with annual extramural research portfolios over $100 million to develop public access policies relating to research conducted by employees of that agency or from funds administered by that agency. H.R. 5037 builds upon and refines the work done by the NIH [through the NIH Public Access Policy] and requires that the Federal Government’s leading underwriters of research adopt meaningful public access policies.
Federal agencies impacted by this legislation include: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and National Science Foundation.
Under this legislation, each agency would be required to:
- Make electronic versions of peer-reviewed articles publicly available via the Internet within 6 months of the original publication date, and
- Preserve the manuscripts in a stable digital repository maintained by the agency or in another suitable digital repository that permits free public access. Each document will be freely available to users free of charge within six months after it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
MLA and AAHSL support FRPAA because:
- Increased access to federally funded research accelerates scientific discovery. With improved access to science, researchers can improve their work and expect their work to have a greater impact.
- This bill ensures free, timely, online access to the published results of research paid for through American tax dollars.
Actions You Can Take:
- Phone calls are recommended, but you may also e-mail your member of Congress this information.
- Find your House member and their contact information by going to www.house.gov.
- Ask for the staff member that handles health care issues.
- If your House member is a co-sponsor of the legislation, please thank them for introducing this bill. Co-sponsors are: Representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Gregg Harper (R-MS), Rick Boucher (D-VA), and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA).
- Emphasize that the MLA and AAHSL strongly support this legislation because public access to health information is vital to a healthy nation and improved medical research. Let them know that expanding public access will also preserve health information for generations to come.
- Tell the staff member that H.R. 5037 will augment the effect of federal dollars through better patient care due to the increase of timely medical information.
- MLA believes that H.R. 5037-The Federal Research Public Access Act enables researchers to realize new discoveries more quickly and encourages a more open exchange of information amongst researchers. Strongly stress these points when you call.
- FRPAA builds upon the success of the NIH Public Access Policy. Since enactment of the NIH Public Access Policy, approximately 4,500 new biomedical manuscripts are deposited into PubMed Central each month facilitating access by hundreds of thousands of researchers and millions of Americans. On a typical weekday, PubMed Central has about 420,000 unique users who together retrieve approximately 740,000 articles.
- Thank them for their time and ask them to update you on any actions they take due to your request (leave your information). If you are transferred to their voicemail, be sure to include the above points and your contact information.
If you have questions or need additional information, contact Mary Langman at langman@mlahq.org.
Posted 5/3/10
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